


stars burn out (and everything golden dies)

by bexgempisces



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Daisys really going thru it tho, Fights, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Late Night Conversations, Oops, Self-Harm, Skye | Daisy Johnson Needs a Hug, Suicide Attempts, im sorry, mama may, not exactly Fitz friendly oops I’m sorry, someone give her a fucking hug pls, this is dark, yeah I’m still mad about how they treated her in season 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:01:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27907141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bexgempisces/pseuds/bexgempisces
Summary: When May asks her later, much later, three in the morning in the training room when her knuckles are bloody and she’s crying, she will lie.She will look down, at the floor she has shed her blood, sweat and tears on, and she will lie straight to May’s face.Because the lie will be easier than the truth.
Relationships: Lincoln Campbell/Skye | Daisy Johnson(past), Melinda May & Skye | Daisy Johnson
Comments: 12
Kudos: 140





	stars burn out (and everything golden dies)

**Author's Note:**

> Ooft, I was really going through it so I wrote this whilst listening to Phoebe bridgers and Taylor swift and Achilles Come Down and Class of 2013 on a loop so uh enjoy that I guess 
> 
> WARNINGS: post season 3, suicidal thoughts, depression, grief, suicide attempts, mentions of self harm, self harm ideas, mentions of past child abuse
> 
> It’s just a dark angsty fic and I’m sorry :( 
> 
> —bex xx

When May asks her later, much later, three in the morning in the training room when her knuckles are bloody and she’s crying, she will lie. 

She will look down, at the floor she has shed her blood, sweat and tears on, and she will lie straight to May’s face. 

Because the lie will be easier than the truth. 

* * *

She doesn’t even know how she got here, her legs carried her to the van and her hands drove without her brains consent. She’s not in control right now. That should scare her. She doesn’t care. 

It will be peaceful to die here. 

That is why she doesn’t go through with it. 

The waves crash around her. She stands on shaky legs and stares into the vast darkness of the ocean and thinks about how _easy_ it would be to just let herself fucking drown. To take all the pills in the bottle in her pocket, drink them down with the strong Russian vodka in her hand and just walk out there, letting it swallow her up. 

And that is why she doesn’t. Because it would be easy. 

She doesn’t deserve an easy death. Not after what she’s done. She’s left SHIELD now, and there’s been chatter from the old Rising Tide posts about Watchdogs in Manhattan. 

She drops the pills in the sand and drains the vodka instead. It doesn’t burn like it used to, it doesn’t make her feel happy and nothing is spinning in the good drunk way. She just feels a little less empty. Her vision is cloudy, but that’s okay. When it is crystal clear she can see all the blood she spilled, it smears her hands and the smell of copper fills her nostrils and it makes her gag- 

The bottle is empty. She drops it next to the pills and heads back to her van. 

Not tonight. Tonight would be easy, quick and painless. She doesn’t deserve that. 

* * *

She thinks she got lucky this time. Not lucky to be alive but lucky that no one on her old team found out about this. She was a hacker before she was an agent, hospital records are piss easy to delete. 

No one needs to know that she cut in the wrong place. Well, maybe it was the right place. It’s all beginning to blur a little. 

Maybe she should be worried about that. 

Two nights later, she sits in a hotel room with a broken arm and her stitches have reopened. Thank god she’s right handed. 

* * *

This shouldn’t count as an attempt right? Technically, she didn’t even notice the bullet wound until she caught sight of it in the mirror after the shower, and only then did she notice how inflamed it was. 

She didn’t give a shit. Not much she could do about it anyway, it was on her back. It’s too awkward and right now she’s more concerned about stopping her arms from snapping into pieces before she destroys the new Watchdog cell and pedophile ring she just found in Kentucky. 

She promises Jolene that she’ll look after herself. That bullet could have killed her if she left it any longer. 

She hopes Jolene can’t tell she’s lying. 

* * *

She’s done a lot of dumb shit in her life but this one might make a new record. God, she swore she wouldn’t let them see how much she was fucking struggling. They didn’t need that, _they didn’t need her,_ no matter how much she needed them. _She_ left, _she_ made the choice. She should have been more careful when she came back. 

She wasn’t planning it when she walked into the prison, but as soon as she saw the prisoners, she knew. Maybe she hoped. 

She’d die here today. One of these prisoners would snap her neck, slash her with some shank made from a toothbrush, one of them would shoot her in the fucking head and it would be over. 

Quiet. That’s all she wanted. For the screams in her head to stop, for once, no more. She wouldn’t hear Lincoln’s scared, pained voice being cut off before he can tell he loves her or she can say it back. She won’t have to live with Mack’s anguished screams as she quaked him harder and harder and she wouldn’t hear her own screams as Hive said he couldn’t take her back like a fucking junkie. She _begged_ him, got on her hands and knees and begged. 

The nuns taught her to pray on her knees to God, he would save her from her sins. She prayed to the Devil himself and burned her soul instead. 

“Lincoln wouldn’t want you killing yourself.” May tells her. 

That’s not what her nightmares tell her. 

* * *

“Will you just let me look at them, please?” Simmons voice is soft, but everything in Daisy’s very being is telling her to run. She cannot show them her arms. Cannot show them the scars and the cuts and the burns. 

“No.” Simmons looks at her with sad, pained eyes and God, she hates doing this. Hates hurting them like this but she cannot show them this part of her, it will only hurt them more. 

“Oh for God’s sake, Daisy. Stop playing the bloody martyr and show Simmons your arms.” Fitz snaps after ten minutes of this back and forth and Daisy’s eyes snap to his. He was the one her disappearance hurt the most, she knows this. 

“I said no.” 

“You’re not the only one who lost people! We didn’t just up and fucking disappear when bad things happen! No, _we stayed_ Daisy, we stayed and we worked it out and we helped other people! Stop being so fucking _selfish_ and show Jemma your arms!” Fitz shouted, his face turning an angry red and the foster kid in her is silently screaming. This is bad, very bad. This is a four day stay in the cellar, in the closet, in her room. This is a belt on her back. This is running laps in the snow until she caught the flu. This is a foster brother crawling into her bed and into her nightmares. 

Logically she knows Fitz is not any of those people, he is her brother and friend and she loves him. He only wants the best for her. 

It doesn’t stop her from flinching. It doesn’t stop her from clapping her hands over her ears. It doesn’t stop the table shaking beneath her. 

“Daisy! Daisy, stop it!” Someone shouts and she clenched her fist until the shaking stops and avoids their eyes as Fitz collects himself. She is acutely aware that everyone in the lab is staring at them and she just wants to disappear. Preferably forever. 

“I’m just saying that she didn’t have to disappear. It’s like you’re not even here now, even though you’re sitting in front of us.” Fitz says gruffly. She nods minutely and stared at the ground. 

“Sorry.” She mumbles. This only seems to anger Fitz more. 

“Don’t say you’re sorry. You’re not. You couldn’t care less about who you hurt, you just run away when things get rough. We all lost Lincoln, not just you.” Even Jemma gasps at this, and Fitz seems to realise what he’s said. He tries to backtrack but Daisy just nods. She knows this. She knows she’s being a selfish asshole. She knows that she doesn’t deserve to even fucking _breathe_ right now, because they should have lost her, not Lincoln. 

Lincoln was everything she’s not. He was good and true and wanted peace. He was a good friend, faithful and true. She is none of those things. She’s destructive and violent and fucked up. He was water, calm and flowing and clear. She’s fire, burning and angry and death. 

“I’ll just go.” She says quietly and shrugs off Jemma as she tries to hug her before she goes. She doesn’t deserve that type of comfort and Fitz has proved that. 

“I didn’t mean it like that Daisy.” Fitz tries to apologise as she walks past and that makes her stop. 

“You did. That’s okay, it’s the truth. I’m selfish and a traitor and a liar. No better than Ward right? I betrayed you by leaving, so I’ll do what I do best and leave now. I’m sorry that I didn’t get over Lincoln’s death fast enough for you, but please try to remember that I’m still fucking human and I’m not a weapon you can break and fix like one of your inventions. People don’t work like that Fitz.” 

They don’t realise that she took a scalpel with her before she left. 

* * *

“Bit late for this, isn’t it?” May asks when she finds her in the gym. She told Yoyo that it was quiet here in the mornings, she didn’t specify the time. “Or should I say early?” 

“Time starts to blend together when you don’t sleep.” Daisy answers lifelessly. She’s been here since her fight with Fitz, which is about seven hours at this point. She’s sparred with the new agents, practiced with her rifle, even took up fucking throwing knives just to prove to herself she could be around sharp objects and not shred her skin. Now, she was beating up a punching bag. 

“Because that’s healthy.” May quips, noticing the lack of wraps on Daisy’s hands, the blood around her knuckles, the dark circles under her eyes. 

“I don’t think anything about this life is healthy.” Daisy says bitterly. Hazard of the job. Lots of agents kept irregular hours, she often wasn’t alone down here. She was tonight though, or maybe she’d just scared everyone off. 

“Heard you and Fitz had a fight.” May says and Daisy’s hands stall. She’s been avoiding the rest of the Playground for a reason, she isn’t ready to face him again. 

“It was my fault.” 

“Why don’t you want them to see your arms?” May asks softly but Daisy's entire body freezes. There are a few ways she can go with this. She could tell the truth and bare her soul for May who might be the only one to understand this. She could lie and just say that she wasn’t feeling up to an exam that day, everyone knew she hated medical. She could tell a half truth and say she was scared. 

Instead of any of that, she cries. Tears spring from her eyes without her consent and once they start she can’t stop. She hasn’t cried like this since she woke up in hospital with thick bandages on her wrists and a doctor was telling her how lucky she was that that maid found her in that hotel room. 

She cried because she _hadn’t_ wanted to wake up. There was a reason she took a shit ton of pills and washed it down with Jack Daniels and cut just a little too close to the vein. She could barely even see what she was doing. She just remembered the blood and how it mixed with the blood of Watchdogs and how it made her feel fucking _free_. 

She sinks to the floor and presses her hands into the floor, barely registering the pain on her freshly broken knuckles and still splintered arms. She sobs, great heaving sobs that wrack her entire body but Jesus, it feels so fucking good to let go. 

She stops crying eventually, a long time later. Her eyes feels sore and her entire body feels like lead now but her mind feels wonderfully clear. 

“What was that all about?” She didn’t realise May was beside he until now, and she shrugs her shoulders sheepishly. 

“I don’t think I’ve been coping too well.” She says, her voice falls faraway and small, like she’s taking through a tunnel. This isn’t Daisy’s voice, it’s Mary Sue Poots, five years old and sent back to the orphanage because she dared to call Mrs and Mr Templeton “mom and dad”. All alone in the world, so young but she understood from that day on that no one would ever care about her. 

She doesn’t think she ever really lost that. The team were her family, but maybe only to her. They all had their own families and their own people and Daisy had no one. Lincoln died, Andrew died, Trip died, even Ward, they all died and they all died for her. 

“I think that’s an understatement, Dais.” May says, her hand running up and down her back. Daisy wants to tell her that it feels fire licking her back but she can’t get the words out. She ignores it, ignores the feeling of wrongness inside her chest at May comforting it. She should want this, she _does_ want this, so what the fuck is her problem? 

“Why didn’t he let me take his place? It was supposed to be me in that Quinjet, so why couldn’t he just let me die?” It’s a harsh whisper and she regrets it the moment it’s out of her mouth. 

“Lincoln loved you. When you love someone, you want the best for them. He did what he did so you could live, Daisy. So you could make amends and right your wrongs.” May tells her but Daisy shakes her head. 

“I didn’t ask for that. I didn’t want to live with it. I don’t want to live with it. I’m tired, May. I’m tired and I don’t want to live with it and goddamn it, _why couldn’t he just let me die!_ ” She doesn’t even realise she’s shouting until a quake escapes from her hand and sends the punching bag to the other side of the room. “Shit, I’m sorry.” 

“You tried didn’t you?” May says instead, not even realising that the bag is exploded on the other side of the room. Daisy avoids her eyes and stares at the floor. 

“No.” She lies. “I didn’t.” 

“ _Don’t_ _lie to me_.” May warns, tears of her own gathering and it nearly breaks Daisy’s walls. She’s made May cry, something she didn’t even know was possible. Why must she destroy everything she touches? 

“Three times. First time was pills and whiskey and a cut too near the vein. Second time was a bullet that I left in far too long. Third time was-“ 

“-the prison. You were going to let them kill you.” May finishes. Daisy nods and tries to make herself as small as possible. She can practically feel the disappointment and that always hurts more than the anger. 

“I’m sorry, Dais.” May whispers, tilting her chin up with a slender fingertip and she stares into those brown eyes that she knows so well. Those eyes have held disdain and pride and love and fear and guilt, but they have never hurt more than now. Now, they are sad and pained. She can’t deal with that. 

“It’s not your fault.” Daisy whispers, trying to fight the burning of May’s skin against hers, the itch in her bones to rip her arms to shreds like paper. It burns because it’s wrong, May should not be comforting her. She ran away and did bad things and hurt them all, she does not deserve this and goddamn it, why can’t she let them go? 

“It’s not yours either.” May says, and Daisy has to disagree. This is all her fault. “You still wanna kill yourself?” 

“A little bit.” She’s terrified that the feeling will never fade, that every gun pointed at her head she will want them to pull the trigger, that every bottle of painkillers will make her want to overdose, that every cliff face will make her think of skydiving without a parachute. 

That everything will make her want to disappear. Just like Lincoln, Andrew, Trip, Ward, her parents did. So many names and so many faces that all made the mistake of loving her. 

Loving her will get you killed. So she can’t let it happen again. 

“But I probably won’t do it.” She adds to her statement. “Good night May. Thank you.” 

“Too many people love you for you to just disappear. There’s no time limit on healing, please remember that.” May says as she stands, shaky at first after her emotional breakdown.   
  
“I know.” 

She just isn’t sure she wants to know. 


End file.
